Free Republic

The plenum of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies adopted a law on Wednesday declaring August 16 the National Day of Awareness of Violence Against Christians. On this day, the following buildings will be illuminated in red between 8:00 PM and 12:00 AM: the Romanian Parliament, the Government of Romania, the central and local public authorities, the Arc de Triumph and the Mogosoaia Palace, reports the Basilica News Agency. This will be done “as a sign of awareness by Romanian citizens of the violence and persecution to which Christians in the world were and are subjected today,” the law states. The...

Moscow, June 25, Interfax - Kremlin representatives have not seen the rainbow flag hoisted by the U.S. embassy in Moscow on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that the propaganda of homosexuality among minors is banned in Russia. Reporters called Peskov's attention to the rainbow flag hoisted by the U.S. embassy on Thursday morning and noted that June is traditionally a month of gay pride parades in the United States. "We cannot see the building of the U.S. embassy from the Kremlin, but it is certainly visible from our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I believe our Foreign Ministry has...

CNA Staff, Jun 23, 2020 / 07:01 pm MT (CNA).- The Bishop of Metuchen led a prayer service for racial harmony and justice Friday, urging Catholics to focus on the eradication of racism. Bishop James Checchio held the prayer service at the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi June 19. “Evil is real and even more dangerous than the coronavirus,” he said during his homily, challenging Catholics to pray and sacrifice for an end to racism, adding that “we need to address this national plague [of racism] with the same intensity we are using in our efforts to eradicate the...

What is happening to our society? A renewed national movement to heal memories and correct the injustices of racism and police brutality in our country has been hijacked by some into a movement of violence, looting and vandalism. The toppling and defacing of statues in Golden Gate Park, including that of St. Junipero Serra, have become the latest example. The memorialization of historic figures merits an honest and fair discussion as to how and to whom such honor should be given. But here, there was no such rational discussion; it was mob rule, a troubling phenomenon that seems to be...

Joseph Meaney, PH.D., speaking Friday in an interview on EWTN Pro-Life Weekly, said that the experiment gone wrong was predictable, because “science, as it emerges into new areas, makes a lot of mistakes.” WASHINGTON — In the wake of a gene-editing experiment gone wrong, the president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center said that the Church must stand firm against the unborn being “sacrificed on the altar of scientific research.” Medium’s science publication OneZero reported last week that scientists in the United Kingdom recently conducted an experiment where they deleted a gene from human embryos using the CRISPR technique. They...

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco led a Holy Hour of Reparation on Saturday morning at the site of the destruction of the St. Junipero Serra statue. Vandals tore down and defaced the monument on June 19. The Act of Reparation included the Holy Rosary and Latin prayers of exorcism. The service concluded with the archbishop blessing the site with holy water. Msgr. Stephen Rossetti of the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal said the archbishop performed a minor exorcism and commanded Satan to leave. He recited the Pope Leo XII Deliverance Prayers for People, Places or Things, also...

Madrid, Spain, Jun 24, 2020 / 06:07 pm MT (CNA).- The mayor of Boadilla del Monte, a town just west of metro Madrid in central Spain, has offered to take the statue of Saint Junipero Serra toppled last weekend in San Francisco. Serra’s statue was torn down in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park June 19, along with other statues of Francis Scott Key, author of the “Star Spangled Banner” and former U.S. president and Civil War general, Ulysses S. Grant. The statue was one of numerous depictions of historic figures pulled down in the past week amid ongoing protests and...

(RNS) — A new study examining Americans’ response to COVID-19 shows that with the exception of white evangelicals, a majority of Americans are not comfortable returning to in-person religious services. The results of the survey suggest that despite political pressure to reopen houses of worship — from President Donald Trump as well as leading conservative Christians and religious liberty advocates — Americans aren’t quite ready to take a seat in a sanctuary. The survey from the American Enterprise Institute showed that 64% of Americans said they were “somewhat uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable” attending in-person worship. Even among those who reported...

Preparations are underway in the Ekaterinburg Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church for the annual Royal Days celebrations in honor of the holy Royal Martyrs, who were brutally murdered in Ekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918. Tens of thousands of Orthodox faithful flock to Ekaterinburg every year to show their love and devotion to the Royal Martyrs, with celebrations culminating with the nighttime Liturgy in the Church on the Blood, built on the site of the Ipatiev House where Tsar Nicholas and his family were murdered, followed by a cross procession to the Monastery of the Royal Passion-Bearers,...

'I proclaim that nothing is above God and that we are not to serve the State when it prevents us from serving God.'June 23, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — As lockdown measures in France continue to be lifted, one of the most outspoken bishops in France against the “confinement” of public worship because of the COVID-19 crisis, Bishop Bernard Ginoux of Montauban, has given a interview to the independent television station TV Libertés. Answering the questions of Jean-Pierre Maugendre, of “Renaissance catholique,” Bishop Ginoux insisted that the French State should not have interfered with the way in which Catholics worship and how...

Christopher Ferrara and the Thomas More Society law center have scored a major victory for religious freedom in America.

What, exactly, did Jesus look like? Was he black? Brown? White? Red? Yellow? We know that he was a first-century, Galilean Jew. But, beyond that, no reliable description of his appearance has been left for us. There is a statement recorded in the Mishnah, the earliest code of Jewish law (compiled roughly 220 A.D.) attributed to Rabbi Ishmael, who lived from 90-135 AD. He said, “The children of Israel . . . are like boxwood, neither black nor white but of an intermediate shade” (m. Negaim 2:1). So, according to a rabbi who lived within one century of Jesus, the...

On June 23, the woman and her four children, were walking up State Street to the Capitol Square in Downtown Madison when they were harassed by a man with a bullhorn who was carrying an aluminum baseball bat.MADISON, Wisconsin — A woman accosted by a male Black Lives Matter activist while she prayed the Rosary with her young children on the Capitol Square earlier this week returned to the scene to pray again Wednesday and Thursday, saying she would not be bullied into silence. “We went out again and prayed today. The way I see it is if we are...

Bishop Juan Antonio Reig Pla said the mobs want to ‘put an end to Christian civilization.’June 23, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – One of Spain’s most outspoken bishops preached on Sunday against the defacement or destruction of statues of Catholic heroes and saints in the present “Black Lives Matter” agitation in the United States. Bishop Juan Antonio Reig Pla of Alcalá de Henares near Madrid said the attacks against Christian symbols marks “the return of the barbarians” and a great loss for all because only Jesus-Christ and the Catholic Church, which is His continuation, can give men the truth they need to...

CNA Staff, Jun 22, 2020 / 03:08 pm MT (CNA).- While statues of St. Junipero Serra have been taken down by protestors in California cities, the mission church in Ventura, California, founded by the saint, has announced it will work with local officials and indigenous tribal leaders to see a Serra statue outside Ventura City Hall moved to “a non-public location.” The announcement came days before a statue of St. Serra was torn down in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park June 20, along with statues of Francis Scott Key and Ulysses S. Grant. In Los Angeles the same day, rioters...

Oversees pilgrims will be free to attend Israel's Holy sites from August, following an announcement from the country's tourist board. On Wednesday, the Israel Tourism Office announced it is set to reopen its borders to international visitors from 1st August, starting with tourists from Greece. It comes after Israel was ranked third in a list of the safest countries during the Covid-19 crisis. Research from Deep Knowledge Ventures studied the behaviour of 200 countries around the world and found that Switzerland, Germany and Israel were the destinations that most effectively responded to and overcame the challenges of the pandemic. In...

In Soos v. Cuomo, (ND NY, June 26, 2020), a New York federal district court granted a preliminary injunction barring New York from enforcing COVID-19 orders that impose stricter limits on worship services than on other activities. The suit was brought by two Catholic priests and three Orthodox Jews.  The court said in part: Assuming, without deciding, that the challenged laws are neutral, plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits with respect to their free exercise claim because it appears that the challenged laws are not generally applicable, and that they would fail strict scrutiny.... On its...

Catholic youths protect statue of Saint Serra, June 20, 2020, Ventura, California. VENTURA, California, June 25, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A group of courageous young Catholics surrounded the statue of a saint in Ventura, California last Saturday, placing their bodies in between Junipero Serra and the mob who wanted to tear him down. The anti-Serra demonstrators had put out a call on social media for the June 20 event that began at 1 PM. Calling the event “Tear down Junipero Serra,” the demonstrators stated that “No longer shall we celebrate the enslavement, rape, and genocide of the original people of Ventura.”...

The Catholic Church abruptly removed a long-standing statue of Junípero Serra from the San Luis Obispo Mission on Monday, amid a reassessment of the missionary’s controversial history that includes abuses against Native Americans. The statue was brought down by a work crew at about noon Monday to “safeguard the statute and to protect it from vandalism,” a spokeswoman for the Diocese of Monterey, which owns the Mission property, said Monday. The statue’s removal follows weeks of protests against systematic oppression of ethnic minorities. Similar statues of the Catholic priest have been toppled by protesters in Los Angeles and San Francisco....

CNA Staff, Jun 23, 2020 / 12:30 pm MT (CNA).- A man has been arrested and charged with vandalism and assault after swastikas were painted on the graves of several Dominican friars and a security guard was assaulted at Catholic college on Monday evening. A statement from Fr. Brian J. Shanley, O.P., and Fr. Kenneth Sicard, O.P., the president and president-elect of Providence College, Rhode Island, said that around 9:30 p.m. on Monday, public safety officers were alerted to the presence of a “suspicious man” at the on-campus cemetery. The cemetery contains the gravesites of deceased Dominican friars who taught...